Defra have finally produced the new rules for Pet Passport from 1st Jan

http://www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-pets/pets/travel/pets/pet-owners/parasites/#travellingfrom1jan

confirming tape worm treatment only is now needed (not from a couple of countries including Ireland) and there is a longer time frame - 1-5 days.

It seems that DEFRA have "forgotten" to inform a large number of veterinary practices about the new rules!  At my own vet last week a lady had a dog in to have it's blood test from the rabies vacc for it's pet passport the what will be from 1st Jan the old way - the dog is not actually needing to travel until next July to France and back.  I asked her why she was not waiting till 1st Jan and just do the rabies shot then and neither my vet nor the lady was aware of the changes.  My vet has since phoned around several veterinary practices in the UK and only one was informed on the proposed changes and that was not by the way of DEFRA!

My vets have the new rules on their website and also printed it in their newsletter that all clients get.

As long as by the 1st January the Rabies vaccine has been administered more than 3 weeks before and is still current then that's it no need to titre test.

Personally I think the titre test should stay and just ditch the waiting period, in other words can travel re-enter UK as soon as a good titre result received. 

Why my opinion, because I have had a dog fail the Titre test, so under new rules I would never have known and would have an unprotected animal able to travel, and possibly bring in Rabies..

>under new rules I would never have known and would have an unprotected animal able to travel, and possibly bring in Rabies..

It's only a matter of time now. These rule changes make it inevitable - let's hope it's later rather than sooner. What a shame we have to rely on hope.

My vet is fully aware of the change in rules and I may be her first '21 days and go' customer.
Ive just made an appointment for the first day they are open in the New Year :-)

DEFRA seem to have a habit of doing this. I bred tortoises and they recently changed the rules so that instead of each of my babies leaving with a CITES Article 10 certificate, I have to give the new owners their certificate number and then send the original back to DEFRA.

None of the vets around hear had heard of this and it wasn't very well advertised, either. I had quite a number of enquiries about my babies and not one of them was aware of the new rules. The only reason I was aware of them was because I received a letter with my certificates for my babies. If I had already have had the certificates before the rule-change I'd never have known.

> Personally I think the titre test should stay and just ditch the waiting period, in other words can travel re-enter UK as soon as a good titre result received. Why my opinion, because I have had a dog fail the Titre test, so under new rules I would never have known and would have an unprotected animal able to travel, and possibly bring in Rabies..

I have heard of a few dogs failing the titre test over the years, so I totally agree with you Brainless. This is an accident waiting to happen.

We've had a couple of failures over the years where I work - extrapolated out over the country as a whole that's one failure per vet - and that's an awful lot of unprotected animals.

The rabies argument aside it is good news that they have increased the window for tapeworm treatment. Now it will be perfectly possible to have your dogs treated by your own vet before you go away for a weekend overseas show :-)

I know of few dogs passing the UK titre test and failing the test few months later(for Sweden).
Travel from Finland to UK is often done via sweden so dogs get tested to be able to do this...

So this has been happening for years now anyways, dogs travelling with valid passports but possibly not having the levels of antibodies required by the time the 6 months has passed from the test result...
Even when the dog fails the titre test it is often still protected, just not have the high enough level needed to pass the test.

That is how my girl failed I didn't titre until more than 120 days after the Rabies vaccination as I wanted her compliant for all Scandinavian countries.

Yes that was the opinion of the French vet I used, he said the titre test was way too high and in his opinion it just wasn't needed... they didn't have any problems with the vaccines in France with dogs not having enough immunity.

Interesting as the titre result for the pup of 10 months my friend imported in May was 10 times what was needed.

> That is how my girl failed I didn't titre until more than 120 days after the Rabies vaccination as I wanted her compliant for all Scandinavian countries.

This is why I think the current rules with the 6 month wait are rubbish and would like to know what scientific proof they had for the timelines, levels of antibodies needed etc...
I don't know that many dogs that have had the tests for both UK&Swedish rules but out of the ones I know, few have passed one but not the other!
Knowing this, I really can't see what the panic is for the new rules as even now we are indeed getting dogs that will not have the antibodies required by the time they enter UK 6 months after the test they have passed...
Of course these dogs are free to travel for 3 years before their next jab as well so if after 120 days they fail the test, what would the result be after 3 years?

Lot of people in Finland get their dogs tested to enter sweden (to be able to show there) and amount of dogs failing this titre is definately a lot higher than amount of dogs that I hear of failing the UK passporting here in UK!
Also, Finland is bordering Russia, where rabies is very much alive and there has been only few cases in about 30 years with animals freely crossing the borders (wild and domestic imports) Lot of dogs are still used for hunting, people treck in these forests so do get close to the possible source of Rabies etc...
I really do think the new rules do not put our pets here in Uk in much of a risk like some people seem to be so afraid of.
I understand dogs here do not get vaccinated for Rabies but I still think chances of a pet dog catching a rabies from an animal that has crossed the borders is very very very small indeed...

I work at a vets and i'm sure we got a letter about the rules changing back in the summer. It has been well publicised so i am amazed that there are vets who don't know.Th RCVS was campaigning to stop them changing the tick and tapeworm treatment requirements back in the summer so they should have been informed that way at least.